Tourist charged $165 for pedicab ride in New York
A tourist was charged $165 (around £107) for a pedicab ride in New York that went less than a mile on New Year's Eve.
Ken Smith, 41, a Red Cross worker living in Haiti, originally from Wisconsin, was sightseeing in Manhattan with his daughter, Samantha, and wife, Peothong, when they took a pedicab ride from Herald Square to the Rockefeller Centre. The journey is about 0.8 miles and lasted 15 blocks.
Mr Smith said the driver illegally charged per rider and used his feet to cover the sign on which prices were written in small print.
Speaking to the New York Post, he said: "It's a rickshaw. I thought, 'How much can it cost?'.
"I felt like I was robbed. We saw and know most of the scams all over the planet, and, sadly, we're victims to one in our own country.
"We could have taken a 15-minute trip in a helicopter. Then at the end, you really get socked. It's a shame. It happened to me in New York, of all places."
He added that the cabby even asked for a tip, but Smith told him the fare was quite enough already.
Mr Smith paid using the Square app on the cabby's iPhone before reporting the rip-off to the non-emergency 311 line.
There are more than 800 pedicabs operating in New York, mainly in tourist areas like Central Park and Times Square.
According to the Daily Mail, tourist scams have become so prevalent that in 2013 new laws were passed to try and regulate the rickshaw charges.
The paper says that new rules state pedicabs can only charge per minute rather than per person, and that they can charge what they like as long as it is posted on their vehicle in 28-point font.
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